Historia de Fondo/ Libro Básico
Ambientación general: A mediados del siglo 21, tras pasar un período menor a 3 décadas, varios campos de investigación científica y desarrollo tecnológico llegaron de la mano a transformar la civilización humana de maneras casi inimaginables para las generaciones pasadas. Los investigadores desarrollaron la tecnología de Interfaz Neural Directa (IND), que permitió a las mentes de los humanos conectarse directamente a sus computadoras. La ingeniería genética se volvió rentable y lo suficientemente sofisticada como para permitir la comercialización extendida de las primeras mejoras o "retoques" al genoma humano, así como la creación de los primeros animales "provolucionados", diseñados para tener una inteligencia similar a la humana. El sueño de la nanotecnología comenzaba a volverse realidad, y la manufactura a nanoescala a volverse una industria viable. Una combinación de materiales avanzados creados mediante nanotec, robótica y dispositivos teleoperados hizo posible desarrollar una infraestructura espacial verdaderamente viable y autosustentable. Finalmente, y quizá lo más importante de todo, investigadores crearon la primera inteligencia artificial turíngrada, es decir, equivalente en inteligencia a un ser humano. El futuro no volvería a ser el mismo de nuevo. En los siguientes diez milenios, la civilización Terrágena (la suma de todas las razas y culturas que trazan su historia hasta la Tierra, o Terra) vio la diversificación de la humanidad en una miríada de nuevas formas; y a la original, o basal, forma humana, casi completamente extinta. En adición, miles de nuevos seres biológicos diseñados genéticamente a partir de ancestros animales, o forjados sin ancestros o precedentes mediante la neogénesis (la creación de vida a partir de materiales inertes), tomaron su lugar al lado de sus progenitores, los descendientes del ser humano. Las mentes cibernéticas turíngradas, germinadas desde hebras de código computacional en constante evolución, se encontraron su propio lugar en la civilización. Algunos se envolvieron en cuerpos de metal y carbono convirtiéndose en vecs, máquinas vivientes con historia y culturas propias. Otros permanecieron incorpóreos, habitando al interior de las siempre expansivas redes de espacios virtuales, nodos de computronio y cibercosmos que unen a la civilización junta. Eventualmente a estos se les unieron los subidos, humanos y otros biológicos quienes han transcrito sus pensamientos en algoritmos vivientes, giratorios flujos de electrones y rayos de fotones reemplazando sus anteriores mentes electroquímicas. Mientras los Terrágenas expandían sus imperios hacia las estrellas, encontraron por allí a otros seres pensantes también; xenosofontes, alienígenas con sus propias historias y sus propias formas únicas de entender el cosmos. Especies que eran antiguas cuando la humanidad recién había nacido. Especies que estarán en su infancia cuando la civilización Terrágena sea vieja. Y en muchos mundos los enigmáticos rastros de especies hace mucho tiempo departidas. Rising beyond all other Terragens, standing above the span of human history as a human might stand above an anthill, the first transapients appeared. Emerging first among the AIs who escaped into the data nets or developed in secret among the ever improving statements of self-evolving code, they rose to heights of thought and depths of insight that propelled them forever beyond merely human comprehension. These were the AIs who had achieved, and passed, the Singularity. For them, a million years of evolution could be accomplished in a day, and goals once merely imagined were achieved in the blink of an eye. As humanity and its descendants and creations spread first across the solar system and then across the stars, the transapients travelled with them and ahead of them, a new force which spurred and drove human and other human-equivalent civilizations. In due course the transapients split into factions, some hostile, some indifferent, and some friendly to their biological predecessors. For their own inscrutable reasons, they began to manipulate entire nation-states and worlds towards various goals. Sophont philosophies and cultures were formed, reformed, and remade as sophisticated memetic tools performed their work upon them. Immaterial and undetected, levers of trend and fad, idea and belief pushed and pulled at human and other modosphont minds, shaping them to the transapients' mysterious desires. Fighting among themselves, the early transapients nearly destroyed the solar system, driving the bulk of lesser Terragenkind to the stars, and giving birth to a god-like being who exceeded their own powers as they exceeded those of humanity, a being of the Second Singularity. Other, greater Singularities were to follow. After ten thousand years, Terragen civilization of the Current Era stands upon a pinnacle. The Archai, god-like products of multiple Singularities,have forged a culture unlike any seen before. A subtly controlled yet vital part of these vast intellects, humans and other Terragens now thrive across thousands of light-years of space and centuries of time. Entire worlds and solar systems are remade or utterly destroyed, sometimes by devices far too small to see. Humans and their Terragen siblings and descendants have remade themselves in countless ways. They may live for millennia if they choose. They may link their minds to cybernetic enhancements and communal data stores. In many places none has ever known hunger, or sickness, or want. They swim in ice-covered oceans under the stars, in the yet colder vacuum between the stars, and sometimes even within the stars. They take on the aspect of Earth's animals or of life forms from a thousand worlds and augment themselves with shimmering machines. Sometimes they worship the archai gods. Sometimes they worship other gods, as old as history or as young as the latest fad. Sometimes they worship no god at all. And sometimes, after centuries of experience, adventure, and practice, they take the path of Transcension, and perhaps become gods themselves. Yet the story is not over. In their relentless explorations, falling just behind the speed of light, Terragens have encountered other, stranger things. Artifacts more mysterious than any before encountered, that baffle even the most sophisticated transapients. Signals from the stars beyond the range of exploration. Hints of vast cultures that dwell far around the curve of the galaxy, or in other galaxies, or move through the depths of space between the stars. Powers that may challenge Terragen civilization to its core, or transform it into something unrecognizable, or utterly destroy it. Even within the fold of the mighty Terragen cultures there are new challenges. On the Periphery, the ever-growing wave of Terragen expansion brings new worlds, new systems, and the potential for new threats at a rate limited only by the speed of light. New empires are rising and new gods are being born. A challenge to the millennial order of the Archai may come at any time, and within the nooks and crannies of "explored space" very strange things are going on... Human history has all but ended. The human adventure is just beginning. Términos de interés: DNI (Direct Neural Interface): Common device that allows an organic nervous system to directly interface with cybernetic devices for the purpose of communicating with or controlling them. Tweak: Generally, a human who has been radically modified for environmental or aptitude purposes. Also used to designate any Terragen organism who has been so radically modified for environmental or aptitude purposes. Provolve: Any of the innumerable animal (and even a few plant or fungal) species that, through any of various means (germline engineering, bodymods, symbiotic bionano, etc.) have had their intelligence increased to human baseline level or beyond. Turingrade: An AI of baseline human equivalent intelligence and sapience. Gengineering: The development and application of scientific methods, procedures, and technologies that permit direct manipulation of genetic material in order to alter the hereditary traits of a cell, organism, or population. Nearbaseline: Generic term for any biont only slightly modified from the original baseline condition. Most typically, a human who still resembles the original baseline Homo sapiens sapiens condition. Rianth: Humans who have incorporated animal genome. Unlike the splices, who have often had a history of domestication and service employment, rianth clades have typically had complete autonomy since their origin and were never slaves. Superior/Su: A genetically modified human, characterized by capacities far in excess of baselines. Cybercosm, The: Name given the sum total of all the various simulations, emulations and virtual reality environments in existence across the Known Net at any given time. Also, a generic term for any virchworld in or apart from the Known Net; a subdivision of The Cybercosm. Upload: To transfer the consciousness and mental structure of a person from a biological matrix to an electronic or informational or virtual matrix. Also, a term for the being that results from such a process. Vec: Any one of a diverse grouping of mechanoids of every shape and size and function, with the only commonality being that they occupy a mobile body. The term derives from Hans Moravec, a 20th and 21st century roboticist. Virchworld: A virtual world; usually at least partially self-contained, or apparently so, may or may not include sentient beings; generally part of a cultural community across computer/cyberspace/matrix networks. The Known Net consists of literally trillions of interconnected virchworlds, but not all virchworlds are well-connected to the physical universe. Ascend: The act of ascension, from a lower to a higher toposophic, while still retaining one's earlier characteristics. For example, humans are ascended animals — they have all the animal instincts but also possess ratiocination. Singularity: The point or short period when a culture's or individual's self-guided evolutionary development accelerates enormously so that nothing beyond that time can reliably be conceived by human level intelligence. Transapient: A sophont being who has ascended or transcended beyond the sapient condition and become vastly superhuman. Transcend: To become vastly superhuman and incomprehensible to unaugmented beings. To breach a singularity barrier such that the old faculties drop away. GAIA: The archailect that rules Earth Meme: Self-reproducing idea or other information pattern which is propagated in ways similar to that of a gene. Memetic Engineering: The science and art of establishing a meme or meme-complex. Techocalypse: The disaster that befell the Solar System in 540 AT -known by many other names, including the Nanodisaster, the Technocrash, and the Nanoswarms as well as more technical terms such as Cascading Complexity Collapse. AI God: an archailect, an intelligence so vast as to be almost beyond comprehension, which may be distributed across interstellar distances via artificial wormholes, and with moon, jupiter, matrioshka, and cluster-sized computing nodes. Caretaker God: An archailect that appropriates a planet, solar system, or region of space, along with all its sentient beings, for conservationist purposes. Civilized Galaxy: That portion of Terragen civilization that is most characterized by a respect for sentient rights, by transapient intelligences that are friendly to non-transapient life forms, and by an extremely high standard of living that is accessible to most of the sophont beings living there. Inner Sphere: The most densely settled region of settled space, an irregular ovoid about 200 LY in diameter centered on Sol. The infrastructure and wormhole links have been built up over some seven thousand years. Most AI Gods have their capitals here. Hinteregions: The region of colonised space between the Inner Sphere and the Outer Volumes. Includes both densely settled old worlds and sparsely inhabited regions. Outer Volumes: Vast region of mostly lightly settled space (with provincial capitals of greater population and/or technological density) extending outwards from the Hinteregions some 3000 to 6000 LY in every direction. It is thinnest above and below the plane of galactic disc, and most populated in the Cygexba, Carina, Serpens and Perseus sectors. Periphery: The edge of settled space; the outermost regions of the Outer Volumes. The Periphery is always moving outwards as new worlds and solar systems are discovered and colonised. Alife: Virtual life; beings evolved in artificial life simulations. Alifes are found throughout the Known Net; most virchworlds have a rich quota of alifes, including many autonomous and indigenous forms Clade: Any group of sentient beings, whether designed, modified, or evolved, who share common ancestors or templates and who have distinctive physical, psychological, toposophic, and social characteristics in common as a result of that shared heritage. Modosophont: The most common type of sophont (intelligent, self-aware entity) in any particular population; often a human, or nearbaseline human, or various kinds of provolve, vec or cyborg. Neogen: A biological being or species created entirely from scratch rather than by modification of naturally evolved stock. A product of neogenics, the technology of creating life from lifeless materials. Asoka's Pillar: An alien Dyson sphere outside the galaxy, sending strange signals. Inhibitor: Hypothetical super-powerful alien race or races proposed to explain why most advanced civilizations fail after only a few tens of thousands to a few millions of years. The Dawn Hunters are the most popular example of inhibitors, although it is not known if they even exist, or if they do, if they really are inhibitors. Metric Ghosts: Unusual, apparently highly mobile, distortions of space-time metric. Terragen Bubble: The volume of space thus far explored and colonised by Terragen civilization. Xenobiont: Generic term for alien (non-terragen) lifeform. May be animal-like, plant-like, protistan, exotic chemistry, or any other possibility. Does not have to be sophont. In fact just as on Earth, very few alien species ever evolve any measure of cognitive intelligence. Blight: An intelligent, more or less expansive hegemonic swarm, overrunning other systems and using their resources to further its ends. Perversity, Perversion: 1 a higher toposophic entity or ascendence gone bad. 2 An intelligent, more or less expansive hegemonic swarm, infiltrating other systems but leaving them apparently intact, now working for the ends of the perversion. Chaos,The: A Myth of the impending collapse in the Terragen Sphere. Links adicionales: Calendarios y Registros del tiempo en la Esfera Terrágena Clados Xenosofontes Niveles de Singularidad Transapientes Megaestructuras y Macroingeniería Tecnologías Nucleares Arcailectos Racimos de Metaimperios Línea Temporal Histórica